


Got Your Back

by impalawinchester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-27 15:01:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13250691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impalawinchester/pseuds/impalawinchester
Summary: The reader decides she needs to leave Sam Winchester, the man she has fallen in love with, because she knows she can't compare to Dean.  But they've been through so much and Sam can't give up on her just yet.





	1. Deciding to Leave

You were lying in bed – in your bed, in one of the many bedrooms in the bunker. Sam and Dean were probably still awake, doing research, getting drunk, looking through the library. Well, that would only be Sam. Sam Winchester, the man who had climbed to the top of the list of people you cared about, and had even managed to surpass your own self. 

And that wasn’t okay. You closed your eyes. You were losing your mind keeping your feelings bottled up, knowing they couldn’t be returned not because Sam didn’t love you – you knew he did. He must, judging by the look in his eyes when he returned home from a hunt and found you cooking dinner or watching a movie or scrawling in your notebook. But because the love he offered you, it hurt too much knowing that there were so many interruptions, so many ways that your relationship could go up in flames. You weren't strong enough to endure any of it any longer. 

Sitting up, you gave up on sleep, glancing around your room yet again to make sure you’d packed away your minimal belongings. And you had – your duffel was packed with your clothes, a spare pair of shoes, some books, your laptop, your shampoo. All your life, materially, was in that bag. The rest of your life – the parts that mattered – were sitting outside by the table clad in their damn flannel shirts and worn jeans. 

You'd done it once before, packed away only the bare necessities and ran off. You could do it again.

Your eyes were wide open in the concrete-walled room. And you’d also managed to smuggle one of Sam’s softest flannels into your bag and there was a beautiful vintage Volkswagen in the garage that you’d managed to rotate the tires on and fill up its tank with gas – ready to go. 

There was no sense in waiting, no need to delay the tragedy that teetered on the horizon. There was no way to make goodbye easier. All you could do was get it over with. 

So out the door you went, duffel and backpack in hand, heart already breaking, tears already threatening, but also a sense of peace. Like you knew, somewhere so deep it could hardly stand to see the fluorescent lights of the bunker, that releasing yourself from the bunker and the brothers, from the life, would eventually be good for you. Eventually. You didn’t know how long eventually meant. You suspected months, years. 

Sam and Dean were sitting together, as predicted: Sam with his laptop open to some pdfs with a pile of books next to him and Dean lounging back, beer in hand, asking Sammy if he’d found anything else about the mystery case out in Nevada. Looked like a rougarou, but they weren't sure yet.

“Hey. I don’t know if this is a case yet,” Sam said, only glancing up for a second to note your bag. But Dean watched you carefully, and you crumbled under his gaze. You shifted your eyes away, and the first few tears fell. 

“Sam,” Dean said. Sam turned his attention to his brother, waiting for him to continue, but Dean was silent, as he continued watching you unravel. Sam finally turned too. 

“What’s going on?” He stood, took a step closer. 

“Why are you crying?” he asked, and made a move to reach out to you but you recoiled, against every instinct, against all your will, and as you did Sam’s face twitched in confusion. You drew in a shaky breath, and spoke. 

“I’m leaving.” You shrunk away in shame. 

“Why?” Sam asked, and you felt his puppy dog eyes boring into you, but you didn’t dare meet them – you’d be in a puddle. 

“Please don’t make me explain.” 

“Explain,” Dean said anyway. He was putting up his walls again, blaming himself, shutting you out so it all hurt less.

“All my life I’ve been second to everyone. Every boyfriend, friend, even my parents. Always,” you said and drew in another strangled breath, “and then I found myself with you. And I found the place I thought I belonged.” 

“You do belong here,” Sam said and reached out to touch your shoulder. That’s when a sob finally escaped. Dean winced at the sound, at the way your body tensed and convulsed with it, shoulders hunched in and your face twisted with grief. 

“I don’t, Sam. I don’t belong second best again,” you forced out, "I can't let you make that decision again."

“What are you talking about?” Sam said and placed his other hand on your other shoulder, feeling you tremble. You glanced to Dean, and his face was disgustingly blank, as was his defense mechanism. And it was your fault. 

“If you could save either me or Dean, you would save your brother.” 

“(Y/N),” Sam said, brows wrinkled, squeezed your arms, “That’s not how it is. That's not what happened. It was close call, but I wasn't going to let you die.” 

You met his eyes, pulled away from his arms. You needed him to know that it was okay. That you never should have hoped that his will was anything other than keeping his brother alive. It was foolish of you to think that you could ever mean as much to Sam as his brother meant to him. 

“You should put your brother first, Sam. But I can’t – I can’t do this again.” Sam’s face crumbled, and your heart ripped itself in half and Dean stood behind with hatred written all over his face, rage towards you for breaking his brother. 

“I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me.” Dean huffed. Sam clenched his jaw over and over and averted his gaze. And your heart broke, because you knew they would always hate you, especially Dean, and you’d let them down. You began to resent yourself and your need for someone else’s value to land on you – you were leaving the Winchesters to prevent that. It was necessary. It hurt like hell, but it was necessary. 

“I’m sorry,” you said one more time, but Sam was already walking away. You wiped at your cheeks, unable to look up at Dean, and left the only people you had ever really loved. Sam was the love of your life. But that didn’t mean you were his.


	2. Meeting the Winchesters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reader remembers how she first met Sam and Dean.

You went to the garage, keys and bag in hand, and as you sat in the driver’s seat, your whole material life next to you in a pathetic duffle, you felt sorry for yourself. 

You looked yourself in the rearview, drew in a shaky breath, and willed the sobs to leave you be. But they overflowed in a pathetic explosion. 

Shoulders trembling, whole being grieving for the man you’d severed yourself from, Sam’s flannel bunched up under your nose in a weak attempt to provide some sort of comfort, you slipped into a memory...

It was dusk, and you were just getting back from dinner with some friends. Work friends, so your actual sense of humor couldn’t be revealed, you posture was impeccable lest someone judge your for being an unladylike slob, and all you’d order was some kind of meager chicken something to again, be polite and ladylike. 

Your life had fallen into a monotonous, stagnant, awful pattern: work, maybe some reading, maybe some food shopping or Netflix, sleep, gym, more work. And, oh yeah, the occasional and unbearable work happy hour. 

That night, you planned on slapping on a face mask and curling up on the couch for some TV. But you heard the floorboards in your bedroom creak, then a door slam. 

Frowning, you went to investigate, but you felt something behind you, like someone was standing there. But you’d locked the door, always kept the windows sealed, and you had a security system. You puffed out a nervous breath, which you could see in front of you. Had the temperature dropped like 40 degrees? 

You moved to turn the thermostat up, and that’s when your door burst open and a guy with a shotgun ran through, scared the shit out of you, but before you could scream or do anything for that matter, he shot just to your right. When you looked, someone was standing next to you, but he vanished when the round hit him. 

“Holy shit,” you heard yourself say, but the guy had run into the room and was surrounding you in a circle of – salt? 

“What the hell is going on?” you said, wary of his weapon but he somehow seemed to you… trustworthy. 

“Dean!” he yelled back towards the door, and another guy ran in. 

“Have you seen a locket in here?” the first guy asked you, but you found yourself unable to answer. You were shaking with fear, with confusion, with what you had seen. 

“Have you seen a locket in here?” he repeated with urgency, leaning in close, finger on the trigger of the shotgun. 

You mouth opened and closed a few times before you managed, “Yeah, I found it when I moved in a couple weeks ago. It’s in the drawer, over there.” You lifted up a trembling finger towards the drawer you meant, and Dean rushed towards it. 

“Listen, you’re safe as long as you stay in this circle,” the other said. You nodded, glanced down at the circle, and drew up enough courage to ask: “What was that?”

His jaw clenched and unclenched several times, his eyes flickered away. 

“A ghost,” he said. You snorted.

“Right. And you’re Ghostbusters.” 

“Something like that.” And with that Dean held up the locket, tossed it into the sink, and set it ablaze. The ghost materialized just out side the salt circle, attempted to reach for you, but went up in flames.

“I think I might throw up,” you heard yourself say before you wobbled on weak knees and ended up falling over before the guy caught you. 

“Did I pass out?” you asked, staring at the ceiling as you were situated on your couch. A laugh.

“Not quite. I’m Sam, by the way. And that’s my brother Dean.” 

“(Y/N).” You squeaked and shortly thereafter sat up.

“What just happened?” Sam sighed, sat next to you, wrung his hands. 

“So that was the ghost of a guy that died in this building. He was attached to that locket, which had a picture of his wife in it. He was going after young women with (Y/H/C),” he gestured to you, “you fit the profile. We burned the remains. He’s not coming back.”

“Ghosts are real?”

“And vamps, werewolves, shapeshifters…” Dean added with a curt nod. Sam shot him a look.

“And you’re the men in black?” you asked. 

“We’re hunters. We take care of things like that.” With that he stood, nodded, and told you to take care of yourself. 

“Hold on, you can’t just leave.”

“Trust me, you don’t want us around,” Sam said. Dean disappeared out the door. 

“What am I supposed to do now?” you asked in exasperation. 

“Forget this ever happened,” Sam advised you and out the door he went behind his brother. When you glanced out the window, Dean was waiting in their car, an old black muscle car. And something about them, something about your newfound knowledge, it called out to you, begged you to do something about it. 

Without a second thought, you threw together your bare necessities, grabbed your car keys, and ran out the door after them.


	3. Behind and Ahead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean discover that the reader is tailing them, so they decide to sort things out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little shorter, but the next is longer, I promise :)

They stopped at a motel on the outside of town, and while they were inside, you took the opportunity to fill up your tank. And good thing you had: when they got back in their car a half an hour later, they didn’t stop driving until they hit Indiana. You lived in New York. 

At some point they pulled off onto a side street, and you lost them for a minute, but then you spotted their car in a parking lot next to a bar. You thanked your lucky stars; you hadn’t eaten in a day and you seriously needed sleep. You should also probably talk to them. But not yet. 

So you pulled on a hoodie and tucked your hair away and hid your face as best you could. Opened the door, took a step forward, and you heard the safety of a gun release. 

“Why the hell are you following us?” a voice behind you snarled, and you heart stopped. It was Dean. Sam rounded the front of your car, a gun in his hands, aimed at you, suspicious look in his eye. But then he tilted his chin up and lowered the gun. 

“(Y/N)?” You sighed and pushed the hood off. 

“Surprise,” you said, willing Dean to put down the gun. You heard the safety flick back on but you weren’t paying attention to him. No, you were watching Sam. 

He was gorgeous, which you hadn’t noticed before. And the worry that flooded his face as he looked at you, a miserable lost puppy? You had missed someone looking at you that way.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Dean asked, tucking his gun away. You looked between the two of them, realized you had literally nothing to lose, and threw your hands up. 

“I couldn’t just go back to ignorance. I had to know more. And the only way I could do that…” 

“Was to follow us,” Sam finished. You blushed, at once understanding how ridiculous you must’ve looked. 

“You gotta go home,” Dean told you, “this life isn’t safe. You seem like a nice girl. Don’t get yourself into our mess.” You didn’t know what you were getting yourself into, that was for sure. But you also knew that you wouldn’t survive going back to New York, to the job you hated, to the people you couldn’t stand, to the life you resented more and more every day. 

“I’m not going back,” you said, crossing your arms. Sam smirked, looked down to hide it. 

“Well then I guess we better get you a drink,” Sam said.


	4. A Week With the Winchesters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reader spends some time with the boys learning tricks of the trade, but Dean knows she's better off living a normal life.

You’d spend the next week with the Winchesters, with them teaching you how to hustle pool and pick pocket, hack security cameras, do research, and hot wire cars. Dean hated that you practiced on the Impala, but Sam thought it was hilarious. 

“You’re messing with my baby. Can’t we find a damn minivan or something?” 

“Not until she gets the hang of it,” Sam answered. He was sitting shotgun and you were sitting in the driver’s seat. You’d finally figured out how to unlock the car with a strip of wire, but you were struggling to start the car. 

“I can’t watch this,” Dean said and walked back into the motel room. 

The three of you were in North Dakota. Some small town where you could learn a few tricks of the trade.

“You almost have it. Try one more time.” Try one more time you did, yet it was no use. You still couldn’t get the engine to turn over. You huffed and flopped back against the driver’s seat in defeat. You needed a few minutes away from the task in front of you, and anyway, Sam and Dean were still mostly a mystery to you. You hardly knew them besides a few basics and obscure details. 

“So this is your life?” you asked, looking around, “motel rooms, greasy roadside food, mildly criminal activities?” Sam chuckled. God, you loved that sound already. 

“Pretty much.” He looked out the window where his brother was on the phone, pacing back and forth slowly. 

“We got started in the life after my mom died. My dad took it pretty hard, raised us as hunters.”

“You’ve never known anything else?” you asked. Sam had a far away look in his eye. 

“Once, I ran away. I went to college. And I almost got out. But Dean pulled me back in and he’s my brother, you know? He’s the one person who understands what this life is like and has my back through it.” 

“I understand,” you said, thinking that you did. You’d only seen some details of their lives. You were so naïve. 

“Sweetheart, you don’t know the half of it,” Dean cut in, leaning on the open passenger door.

“Bobby caught us case a couple shakes out," he continued, "Tried to get Rufus on it, but he’s on a salt and burn in Michigan.” Sam stiffened. 

“Tell him to get someone else to take care of it,” Sam said through a locked jaw and Dean shook his head. You hated the way their silent communication worked, and how it always left you a step behind. 

“We’re the closest and we’ve got nothing better to do.” 

“I beg to differ, Dean.” 

“Sam, we can’t do this forever. I’m itching for a hunt and play time is over. Do what you have to.” With that he patted the roof of the car and walked off again but that time towards a diner on the other side of the road. 

“Why don’t you take the case?” you asked, still missing a piece of information. Sam turned to face you and gave you his puppy dog look. He could get you to do almost anything if he kept looking at you like that.

“We are going to take the case,” Sam said. 

“Okay. Then I’ll get directions.” He sighed. 

“You’re not coming.” 

“The hell I’m not.” You got out of the car, walked around to his side, and even though he was taller than you, you felt him shrink away from your rage.

“Why the hell have you been teaching me all this crap if you were going to sideline me?”

“You don’t have to be in the life. You can go back. This, all of this, it sucks. My brother and I aren’t escaping. But you still can,” he pleaded with you. 

“What life do I have to go back to?” you hissed, “I hated everything about my life. There’s nothing for me in New York.”

“(Y/N)…” 

“Shut it, Sam. I can’t believe this. I’ll go catch a damn case on my own.” You stormed off towards the room, planning on grabbing your things and as you said, finding another case. Even though that scared the shit out of you. Even though you didn’t want to leave. 

You came back outside, duffel in hand, anger written all over your face, and Sam was standing next to your car. You yanked open the trunk, threw your stuff in, and pushed him out of the way of your door.

You said a prayer that your little hissy fit would change his mind.

“Let’s hope you don’t have to burn my bones within the week,” you said, and that’s when Sam broke.

“Research.” 

“What?” You crossed your arms.

“You can do research on the case. And then maybe we can talk about hunting. Maybe.” He huffed and stuffed his hands in his pockets. 

You threw your arms around him, laughed into his chest, for once feeling like you were actually putting distance between the life you suffered through for years and a life where you could actually make difference. And when he put his arms around you as well? Your whole chest exploded with warmth and you felt an odd sense. A sense like you were safe. Like you were home. 

“Okay, enough, you two. Wrap it up, we’ve got an evil son of a bitch to gank.” 

“Dean, she’s coming with us.” Dean pulled his brother to face him instantly. 

“Sam, what the hell?” 

“Trust me. This is the best way.”

"The best way? Are you frigging nuts?" 

"She's going to hunt whether or not she's with us and it's safer if we can keep an eye on her." Dean looked pissed. You attempted to suppress a smile. 

"I don't like it." 

"You don't have to like it. You just have to live with it." Then Sam opened up the back door to the Impala for you. 

"May as well take one car."


	5. The First Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean go on a hunt but when they get banged up, you have to take care of Sam.

As promised, Sam gave you research for the case, because it wasn’t one of the typical monsters they had to deal with. It was a shudakumooch, or ghost witch. The local library had some references, and though at first you found your head swimming with an overdose of information, you managed to collect the data the boys needed on the Native American monster. 

Born from the death of a shaman in old Native American tradition, the ghost witch is capable of putting a curse on any victim who makes eye contact. Fire kills them. And apparently one reference source was good enough for them.

You didn’t miss the small, proud smile that flashed across Sam’s face when you called them with the information. And you couldn’t dampen your feeling of pride, even when Dean shot you down with a half-hearted thanks. 

Sam told Dean to shut the hell up on the other end of the receiver, then told you to wait at the motel, and that they’d meet you there soon. Fear seized you after Sam hung up. What if something happened and they didn’t come back? What happened if they left you here? What happened if they got killed? How would you even know the difference?

But you'd told Sam to call the second they finished the job, so you sat your ass down to wait and let the worry start taking its toll on your nerves. 

Three hours later, the brothers stumbled into the motel room looking less than great – Sam was panting with pain, its source unknown, and Dean’s hand and forearm boasted a huge slice which was emitting a steady stream of blood and dripping all over his jeans and the carpet. You ran to the bathroom and handed Dean a towel. Then you turned to Sam. 

“Shit, shit, shit, what the hell do I do?” you said, hands fluttering over Sam uselessly, face twisted in empathy for the obvious pain he was in. 

“Get the med kit,” Dean tells you. Sam huffs and sits on the edge of the bed, rolling his shoulders back and grunting in pain. 

You do as you’re told, unzipping it and staring at its contents dumbfounded. Dean grabs a knife and slices Sam’s shirt down the middle after he’s wrapped his own arm with the towel. Then he starts peeling the shirt off, cursing in pain at his own injury. 

“You take care of yourself. I can do this,” you tell him, partly for selfish reasons. Hey, you’re helping Sam and you also get to admire that beautifully sculpted back of his in the process. Win-win. 

Dean listens to you, quickly dumping some alcohol onto his arm and winching in pain. He’s cleaning out the cut and hissing out a stream of “son of a bitch,” but you move your focus to Sam. 

You instruct him to sit still while you peel his shirt off where’s it’s plastered to his back with blood and ash. He puts on a brave face, but you think it's mostly for your benefit, since your stomach is churning with worry and disgust at the burned flesh. You've never been too good at hiding panic. 

“Shouldn’t we be going to a hospital?” you whisper, examining his back. The burn stretches up one whole side of it, angry red and peeling away from muscle. Sam lets out a humorless laugh and hands you tweezers over his shoulder. 

“We’ve handled worse with less,” Dean tells you. 

“There’s glass you have to get out,” Sam says. Without a hesitation (if you wait even a moment you might lose your nerve) you start picking through his skin, one hand on his good shoulder to keep him steady. 

His hand tightens on the edge of the bed in bursts as you work, his breath inflating his torso and each time he releases a breath it shoots out of him. You can see the muscles in his back working, his spine curved from the way he’s hunched over to give you better access. Dean is stitching up his own arm mere feet away. His curses subside while he works.

Eventually, you’ve picked out all the glass you can find, and his burns need attention. Sam’s ready with the gel for it, standard Vaseline petroleum jelly. 

“Tell me how the case went down,” you said, scooping up the first handful of ointment. Sam tenses up when it touches his skin. Maybe he realizes you’re trying to distract him, or maybe he doesn’t. Regardless, he starts telling you about how they had to hike a while, try to find the nest. He continues with how it all went down as you cover the burn evenly, slowly, carefully. More than once you find yourself realizing how close the two of your are, how warm he is under your fingers, how he's a living, breathing human that you can actually stand to be in close proximity to. And that, you've never experienced before.

When you’re done, you reach for gauze, which you wrap slightly awkwardly around him as tight as you can without it getting uncomfortable. 

Dean’s done by then, examining his handiwork and sipping at a glass of some crap whiskey. He offers the tumbler to Sam. 

“A little late for that,” Sam says but he downs some of it anyway. 

And so you realized you’d traded in your work happy hours for nights in shit motels in middle-of-nowhere towns drinking cheap whiskey and feeling more alive than you had in all your life combined.


	6. And Time Goes BY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reader goes with the Winchesters for years, learning about hunting and becoming one herself, until a demon case goes terribly wrong and something becomes awfully clear.

Years pass. You research for the Winchesters, you clean out their wounds when they get hurt, you even start to slap some sense into them when they keep ridiculous secrets from them. 

You cry when things get bad. You learn how to shoot a gun. You learn how to recite exorcisms by memory, how to draw neat devil’s traps. You eventually figure out how to hot wire a car, hustle pool even better than Dean, hack into security cameras almost as efficiently as Sam. 

You sing with Dean when he listens to his favorite music, talk about books with Sam at night when he can’t sleep, and you even hold him when he’s had a nightmare and wakes up anxious and sweating. 

You fall in love with Sam. Perhaps first you fall in love with your life, on the road, with two men who make the world a little better every day. You can’t imagine your life any other way. 

And when things change, you shift with them seamlessly. Like when the three of you discover the bunker, you pick right up as some kind of ridiculous housewife. You finally have a kitchen to cook good meals for your boys. You have a shower that isn’t filthy. You have a room again and a bed and even though it’s lonely most nights, if you walk down the hall, Sam’s right there, reading in the near-dark or snoring softly. 

You grow older. Wiser. Kinder, yet harder. But the way you feel about Sam? That never changes. 

But then you’re out on a case in Utah and there’s a gun to your head and a gun to Dean’s, and Sam’s looking back and forth between the two of you in agony. there's an ultimatum, there's an asshole demon who thinks he can just fuck with the Winchesters and their hunter-friend (when would you get an upgrade?), and there's no time to waste. For a split second you think Sam'll pick you to live. That he loves you just as much as you love him, that he couldn’t bear to kill you. That somehow, after all you've been through, somehow you'd be enough. You'd come out on top of Dean.

But then he quietly instructs the damn demon to kill you. He’s crying, looking at you with an apology, looking at you like it all should have been different. And you feel like a moron. You're humiliated, shaken with fear, realizing that once again, you're second best. For years you'd convinced yourself otherwise. But with the truth staring you right in the face as the barrel of a gun, you didn't give a damn if you died.

Cas bursts through the door and there’s a whole lot of motion and noise but somehow, you’re uninjured. You’ve fallen to your knees in shock, the demon dead in a black puddle, Cas panting and clutching the bloody demon knife, and Sam’s running towards Dean. Admittedly, Dean’s taken more of a beating than you. He certainly looks worse, with his face covered in blood and one eye swollen shut. 

But inside? You can’t feel anything. And what could be worse than that?


	7. The Decision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You deal with the aftermath of Sam's decision.

Cas heals Dean, but when he moves over to you and reaches out his hand, you reject his touch. 

“I’m fine,” you tell him. His head cocks to the side. 

“I can clearly see you are not fine. Is there something that I am missing about this situation?” You throw your arms around him, give him a tight squeeze. Then you move past him and start walking back to the car. Once there, you curl up in the backseat, looking out the front windshield. 

There’s Dean walking out first, good as new, Sam following close behind holding both his gun and Dean’s, and Cas has already vanished. The Impala is quiet with just you sat inside. No classic rock, no details about a case from Sam, no jokes from Dean. Not that he tells that many these days. 

You reach up over the seats and grab a cassette, Bob Segar. You pop it in, so when Dean turns the car on, it starts playing instantly. 

Sam turns to face you. You can see he's hurting. That there's so much he wants to say. God, do you love him. Ordinarily, you'd help him find the words. Start talking first. Something, anything to make sharing time easier. But you don;t have the strength for that today.

“You okay? Things got close.” 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you lie, and you know your smile is convincing because you’d practiced that smile for years, in your old life. You hoped you’d never have to use it with the Winchesters. You use up nearly all the strength you have on it, on that stupid fake smile. 

Sam nods once and Dean glances at you in the rear view. But you’re looking out the window, planning what you’re going to make for dinner. One last dinner. One last night. One last ride in this car, with these boys, in the life you’d come to appreciate so very much.


	8. Please, Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam tries to convince the reader to stay.

You snapped back into reality with a jolt, with Sam knocking on the window of the Beetle. 

Tears were streaming down your face, your whole heart clenching in agony. 

You shook your head at him, hating that he was seeing you cry. You put the car in reverse and started to back up, trying your best to pretend he wasn’t there, but he pulled open the door, reached over and pulled up the emergency break. You swore at him, struggling to push his hands away and shove him out of the car.

“You can't just leave," he said.

“Yes, I can. I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again." Sam huffed.

“Just, wait a second. Let me explain.” He was pleading with you, puppy dog eyes in full effect, so close to you and it hurt too much to hear him and all you wanted to do was leave and pretend it was all a bad memory but – 

“Fine.” You surprised yourself when you said it. Apparently, it surprised Sam, too, because he let out a quick exhale and cleared his throat in his way. He collected his thoughts for a long moment.

“I’m sorry," he started, "You have every right to leave. I should’ve stalled, I should’ve stopped it, I should’ve done something. I’m so sorry, (Y/N).” 

“Yeah, well, I-“ 

“Please let me finish,” he said. He was damn near begging. You closed your eyes for a moment. Braced yourself for whatever the hell he was going to say next. 

“You’re family. But my brother, we’ve been through too much. Our relationship isn’t healthy, and I know that. I couldn’t watch him die and then see you and resent you for living and him for dying. I know it’s screwed up. Fuck, I know I’m screwed up.” 

Sam crouched down, looked you in the eye. His were glassy. 

“Please tell me you understand why I couldn’t choose you. Why I’m in love with you and I still can’t choose you because I need my brother. Because I lost a girl once, and I could do it again if I had Dean. But if I lost him and you had to suffer the rest of your life picking up the pieces? Suffering with me? It would kill us both. I would hate myself.” 

He was desperately trying to explain, trying to reason it out, tell you the truth. He was literally on his knees in front of you pouring out his damn heart and you had almost missed the small confession he slipped in. 

“You’re in love with me?” you whispered, voice thick with tears. You hoped he read between the lines that you heard his reasoning. That you forgave him. That you understood.

Sam let out a breathless, relieved laugh, smiled at you. 

“Yes, I’m in love with you, (Y/N).” A smile crept its way onto your face. A stray tear slipped down your cheek. Sam brushed it away with his thumb, palm holding your face still. 

“Good thing I’m in love with you, too,” you said. 

Sam kissed you, and it was an apology, a thank you, an I-love-you. It was everything.


End file.
